Education: Playing Fields of Eton

Britain's hallowed public (i.e., private) schools last week ran into a
fight that sounded for a while like the Battle of the Atlantic, but
they finally limped into port, safe for the present. Up before
Parliament was a proposal euphoniously titled the Public and Other
Schools Bill, to let hard-pressed schools draw on the principal of
their trust endowments to meet their operating deficits during the war
emergency.

Some of the most aristocratic schools in Britain backed the bill: Eton,
Harrow, Rugby, Winchester, Westminster, Shrewsbury, Charterhouse. Their
existence depended on its passage. Financial troubles had already
forced one public school, Weyrnouth, to...